Prominent Politics and Philosophy

Tag Archives: Osborne

I rarely show support for the Tory party as I am a Labour supporter (not New Labour. Labour.) However, I find the recent “scandal” of Osborne parking in a disabled bay somewhat pedantic, tedious, and puerile. Indeed, it comes at a dreadful time after he has just made substantial cuts to the welfare system – and has gone on to criticise it more after the Phillpotts incident – but it detracts away from any real issues at hand. It’s a mistake and one we have probably all made. Rather than criticising the fact he’s parked in a disabled bay, let’s criticise his ineffective policies; let’s criticise Iain Duncan Smith for being … well.

You only have to take a look at the papers which are reporting the incident, and the level of “journalism” which follows it to see that this isn’t a scandal at all, and that there are much bigger things to be concerned about. It’s a cheap assault and one which lacks any substance or dignity.

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I think it’s hard to really define our country as a democracy any more due to the nature of parliament. Although we see parties under the banner of Labour, Conservative, or Liberal Democrats, they’re essentially one amalgamation of common beliefs, those being: we’re a predominantly financial country that trades not in material goods, but relies wholly on a strong (or currently weak) financial center i.e. London.

Indeed, when the City was performing well, Blair hailed its performance and was a bulwark for the City. Now, however, we attack them and are willing to bludgeon the bankers that lost all our money – when it was the years of deregulation that allowed such a thing to happen. I am a strong supporter of Labour but I’m also a strong supporter of holding those accountable for allowing such disasters to happen – of course I blame the Conservative government, too, for becoming extremely reliant on and tied to the American economy and its financial sector. It’s a long-winded argument.

Nonetheless, and perhaps too late on the matter, after the degradation of Britain’s AAA rating, Milliband (and Labour) had countless opportunities to land attacks on Osborne for his austerity plans and the route he’s taken so far. But, in typical Milliband style, instead of taking the opportunity to berate him with abuse and demand answers for reasons we’ve lost the AAA rating, Labour offered nothing and instead squabbled among themselves and offered no coherent alternative for what is happening. Ed Balls predicted that something along the lines of this car crash would happen and if he had stuck to that script then Labour would have had a clear stance in Parliament, but instead they remain ambiguous. The Tories, however, have made their stance perfectly clear which is to stick to the current austerity plan or cut harder and faster. Perhaps an approach similar to World War Two needs to be adopted which encourages an increase in demand and an answer to heavy unemployment. On the contrary, nobody is going to listen to Labour because they hit the poor end of 13 years of governing.